Further evidence that the Catholic Church's involvement in other issues has undermined its teaching role

According to a Zogby poll on Catholic attitudes:

Although Catholics profess their faith openly during church services, this survey shows that an overwhelming majority agrees publicly with its basic tenets. For example, better than 90% overall believe God has the power to answer prayers; Mary is the mother of God; Jesus rose bodily from the dead; He is fully divine and fully human, and the Bible is the inspired word of God. Two-thirds (65%) agree the Bible is literally true in every respect.

65% believe the Bible is "literally true in every respect"?!? In other words a majority of Catholics take a fundamentalist position which the Church not only doesn't take but actively disagrees with. For example, Catechism Section 390 affirms that "the account of the Fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative laguage, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the begining of the history of man."

The Pontifical Biblical Commission in its report on The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church defines fundamentalism as follows:

Fundamentalist interpretation starts from the principle that the Bible, being the word of God, inspired and free from error, should be read and interpreted literally in all its details. But by "literal interpretation" it understands a naively literalist interpretation, one, that is to say, which excludes every effort at understanding the Bible that takes account of its historical origins and development. It is opposed, therefore, to the use of the historical-critical method, as indeed to the use of any other scientific method for the interpretation of Scripture.

This approach is criticized - ironically enough for those who pride themselves on their exercise of personal judgment against tradition - because of its rigidity which discourages examination of God's creation:

Fundamentalism is right to insist on the divine inspiration of the Bible, the inerrancy of the word of God and other biblical truths included in its five fundamental points. But its way of presenting these truths is rooted in an ideology which is not biblical, whatever the proponents of this approach might say. For it demands an unshakable adherence to rigid doctrinal points of view and imposes, as the only source of teaching for Christian life and salvation, a reading of the Bible which rejects all questioning and any kind of critical research.

The basic problem with fundamentalist interpretation of this kind is that, refusing to take into account the historical character of biblical revelation, it makes itself incapable of accepting the full truth of the incarnation itself. As regards relationships with God, fundamentalism seeks to escape any closeness of the divine and the human. It refuses to admit that the inspired word of God has been expressed in human language and that this word has been expressed, under divine inspiration, by human authors possessed of limited capacities and resources. For this reason, it tends to treat the biblical text as if it had been dictated word for word by the Spirit. It fails to recognize that the word of God has been formulated in language and expression conditioned by various periods. It pays no attention to the literary forms and to the human ways of thinking to be found in the biblical texts, many of which are the result of a process extending over long periods of time and bearing the mark of very diverse historical situations.

This rigidity of thought can be seen in a variety of areas:

Fundamentalism likewise tends to adopt very narrow points of view. It accepts the literal reality of an ancient, out-of-date cosmology simply because it is found expressed in the Bible; this blocks any dialogue with a broader way of seeing the relationship between culture and faith. Its relying upon a non-critical reading of certain texts of the Bible serves to reinforce political ideas and social attitudes that are marked by prejudices—racism, for example—quite contrary to the Christian Gospel.

Get that part about an out-of-date cosmology? Just last week Catholic apologist Sungenis was advocating an "earth-centered" cosmology because of his literal interpretation of the Bible. That literal reading is not "Catholic" and the fact that is depicted as Catholic undermines the mission of the Church in a secular world.

This literal approach is in fact dangerous to believers of literalism according to the Pontifical Biblical Commission:

The fundamentalist approach is dangerous, for it is attractive to people who look to the Bible for ready answers to the problems of life. It can deceive these people, offering them interpretations that are pious but illusory, instead of telling them that the Bible does not necessarily contain an immediate answer to each and every problem. Without saying as much in so many words, fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide. It injects into life a false certitude, for it unwittingly confuses the divine substance of the biblical message with what are in fact its human limitations.

Yet, apparently a majority of American Catholics subscribe to some form of literalism, probably under the misguided notion that their faith requires it. And that's really unfortunate. Paradoxically, Catholicism gives its adherents a greater room for the free exercise of judgment. Although the typical fundamentalist may believe that they are giving deference to their conscience and judgment at the expense of tradition, I have never seen much free thinking in literalism. A philosophy that requires its adherents to believe that a text written in a different context for a different purpose is to be held literally true today, notwithstanding advances in empirical knowledge or moral judgment, has never struck me as encouraging the exercise of judgment and conscience at the expense of tradition. Hopefully, and we should pray, the Church will pay more attention to its obligation to educate the faithful.